Pagina's

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Upcycled giraffe summer dress

The people regularly reading my posts will have noticed that I am very
into sew alongs. I love sew alongs because they usually challenge me to
find my own style within given boundaries. Sew alongs inspire me to get
out of my comfort zone. One of the Dutch Facebook groups I am a member
of is organizing one with animal skin as its theme. Animal skin is not
my favourite fabric, far from it even. This particular sew along is
therefore totally up in my alley, how could I come up with a project that
I would like and would have animal skin as a main feature?

First,
I tried to get away with using the lion shirt I created by selling it
as animal skin, lion skin is uni-yellow right? Although my entry was
condoned, I felt I could do better, much better. So I googled animal
skins and found one that I actually kind of like and could even love,
giraffe skin. Coincidentally, giraffe skin is relatively easily created
with some brown fabric and some bleach. I used an old water pen of my
kids and filled it with bleach. Although not perfect, it did give me
quite some control on the drawing process. When I started bleach
coloring I didn't immediately got the right result (why would I practice
right... just ignore the left upper side of the dress), but after
drawing a while I was really satisfied.

The fabric I used was
from a old short sleeved shirt from myself (which ironically already had two
small bleach spots on it). The shirt had a ruffled front neckline and
ruffled sleeve seams which I both salvaged for the final dress. I also
kept the original bottom hem. This meant the dress sewed up very
quickly. This is the best picture I have of the original shirt. I once plannend to make a bigger project of multiple shirts, although I did not actually start that project I was smart enough to make a before picture than.

The pattern I used is from Ottobre 3/2012, but I decided to
ruffle the front of the dress instead of pleating. I cut a 62 width and a
80 length. I think she looks amazingly cute in the dress and I assume
it will be worn a lot this summer.

Besides posting this
animal inspired project today I also post at the Kids Clothes Week blog!
Check it out here, I have written a post on how to make animal inspired
clothes without featuring the actual animal or any of its parts.

I
love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a
comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have
to assist me if you choose something different than English, German,
Dutch or Hungarian).

24 comments:

What a great idea! I love your giraffe print. I can't wait to read your post on the Kids' Clothes Week Blog! I am so excited for the Wild Things Theme that I took some time off work the week of the challenge.

About me

I am a Dutch mother of four (three girls and one boy) and an academic. I love to create and use this blog to share my creations with the world. I knit, crochet, sew, bake etc. and many of those skills I learned from bloggers around the globe. I hope you like reading about my creative adventures and that they may inspire you.